Vecna (Stranger Things)

Vecna, born as Henry Creel and later revealed as  001/Peter Ballard, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the Netflix television series Stranger Things created by the Duffer Brothers. Portrayed by Jamie Campbell Bower and Raphael Luce, the character made his debut in the fourth season as a malevolent being from the Upside Down that haunts his victims with horrifying visions of their past traumas before killing them in a sadistic, brutal manner. As the fourth season progresses, he is ultimately revealed to be the ruler of the Upside Down as well as the mastermind behind all of the events of the series that have terrorized the town of Hawkins, beginning with the disappearance of Will Byers.

Before becoming known by the main characters as Vecna, he was known as Henry Creel. He was born to Victor and Virginia Creel and has an older sister named Alice. After moving with his family to Hawkins, Henry discovered that he possessed telepathic powers and used them to kill his mother and sister, which caused him to fall into a coma. Henry was taken by Dr. Brenner, and he was experimented on by the doctor, causing more children to get the same telepathic abilities. As the years progressed, Henry became a supervisor for the other children, where he befriended Eleven. However, after he reveals his true nature as a misanthropic, nihilistic and genocidal psychopath, Eleven succeeded in overpowering Henry and sent him to the Upside Down, where he was gradually disfigured by its abnormal lightning and toxic atmosphere, triggering his transformation into the being known as Vecna. As Vecna, he eventually used his powers in order to control the monsters and became the ruler of the Upside Down, serving as the general and hive mind to all the creatures of the dimension. Since then, Vecna has pulled the strings behind the events and actions of the Mind Flayer and the other Upside Down's lifeforms during the previous seasons, with his role in Will Byers's connection to the Upside Down eventually coming to light.

Since his first appearance, the character has been well received by both critics and audiences, with strong praise to Bower's performance, make-up design, and the character's backstory reveal in the seventh and ninth episodes. For his performance, Bower received a nomination for the Best Villain in a Series award at the Critics' Choice Super Awards.

Concept and development
Sharing the same name, Vecna is loosely based on the Dungeons & Dragons character of the same name much like the other antagonists of the series including the Demogorgons and Mind Flayer. Bower was cast on November 20, 2020, under the original name of "Peter Ballard"; a friendly orderly at a psychiatric hospital. In a 2022 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Bower said this about his role: "'I have no idea where the name Peter Ballard came from. I can only apologize to fans of the show for being part of such a massive red herring. I remember seeing it and being like, 'Okay, guys. Cheers! That's going to be a tough one if anybody asks me, but I'll just go with the party line.'"The Duffer Brothers confirmed that they have planned to introduce Vecna since the development of the first season. They were offered the chance of introducing the character in spin-off comics or books, but they refused as they needed time to develop the character and figure out what role he would play in the series. For the creation of the character, the brothers were inspired by iconic horror movie villains such as Pinhead, Pennywise and Freddy Krueger. This was with the intention of creating a meaner, darker, and more menacing villain for the show, having the ability to traumatize its victims before killing them in a horrifying way by breaking their bones and gouging their eyes out.

Suit design
Make-up artist Barrie Gower provided the look for Vecna and other Upside Down creatures. Bower had to wear a prosthetic suit for over 7–10 hours every filming session. The suit was designed with "anemic" skin hose integration with the toxic environment of the Upside Down was apparent through the inclusion of "lot of roots and vines and very organic shapes and fibrous muscle tissue." To achieve this look using mostly practical effects, Gower disclosed that he and his team took a full body cast of Bower, to later sculpt to meet their design needs: "'We started off with his life cast, and to make sure everything was going to be super skin-tight, we reduced the life cast by a certain percentage all over, so once we had a plaster form of his entire body, our guys here started modeling the body in all shapes and forms in the Plasticine, which took several weeks to do that. From that, we split the body up into various sections... I think it was about 18 pieces in total, and they all went on to their own respective formers made out of either fiberglass or epoxy resin. And then we made molds of all the separate Plasticine pieces and then once we had these molds, we were able to create prosthetic appliances, and we've done them in a mixture of materials.'"

Life in Nevada
Henry Creel was born in Nevada, 1947 to Victor, a World War II veteran, and Virginia Creel and had an older sister Alice. One day, Henry disappeared for 12 hours into an alternate dimension where he gained powers and also brought the Mind Flayer with him.

Life in Hawkins
The family moved to Hawkins, Indiana in 1959 after Virginia's great-uncle passed away, leaving a small fortune enough for them to move to a new house, in spite of Henry's pessimism. Throughout his childhood, Henry was treated as an outcast and the majority of his cohorts considered him "broken" beyond repair, with the exception of Patty Newby.

Patty took an interest in Henry and encouraged him to use his powers for good. One day while Henry was searching for Patty’s biological mother, the Mind Flayer takes control of his body and attacks Patty's father, leaving him on the verge of death, but in the end he regains control and saves him. After the incident with Mr. Newby, Virginia hands her son over to Brenner, who takes Henry to the Hawkins National Laboratory. In the lab, Henry learns more about his powers and Brenner pushes him to his limits. After a long-distance conversation with Patty and refusing to kill a man on Brenner's orders, he leaves the laboratory.

After returning, Henry feels more misunderstood and separated from his family. Henry had previously discovered black widows and spent lots of time in the attic because of the cold. Henry practiced his powers more and more and showed horrible visions to his family. One day, Henry reads his family's minds and realizes that they are not happy with his return, so he allows the Mind Flayer to kill Virginia and Alice, the murders of whom are blamed on Victor. After this, Henry heads to the school to look for Patty, and during a fight between him and Dr Brenner, Henry loses control and the Mind Flayer apparently kills Patty.

Again in the Hawkins National Lab, Henry became Brenner's first test subject and given the subject name of Subject 001. After numerous failures to keep Henry under control, Brenner ultimately removed him from the group, placed a chip on his neck that suppressed his powers, and replicated his abilities in other children. Henry, already an orderly, held the hand of a child Subject 011 "Eleven".

Subject 001, and becoming Vecna
Over time, Henry oversaw the activities and progress of seventeen children who shared his abilities and he was given the name Peter Ballard. He took a liking to and befriended Eleven. After witnessing Eleven being bullied by the other subjects, Henry believed they were alike and the sense that the world cannot understand them. Henry helped Eleven with her powers and later offering her a chance to escape the lab. Henry gave Eleven a key card and told her to meet him in the basement of the lab. There, Eleven removed the Soteria from Henry's neck after he explains he cannot leave because of it and learns Henry is Subject 001. Upon being caught by guards, Henry dispatches them and tells her to wait for him in a closet. Henry would then murder everyone in the facility with the exception of Brenner. After explaining his origins and crimes to a horrified young Eleven, she rejected his offer to join forces with him in order to wipe out humanity and thanks to the loving memory of her mother, she ultimately overpowered One and banished him into another dimension, later nicknamed the Upside Down. In the Upside Down, Henry began to transform into a mutilated and burned creature, later nicknamed "Vecna." For seven years, Vecna put the lifeforms of the dimension under his thrall by combining them all to a shared hive mind, in part thanks to his bond to a creature later known as the Mind Flayer, whose appearance he shaped into a gargantuan spider and who eventually became his vessel to act on Earth.

Invasion of Hawkins
In 1986, after spending several years inactive and growing stronger while controlling the Upside Down, Henry begins to terrorize Hawkins himself, murdering several students at Hawkins High School, including Chrissy Cunningham, Fred Benson, and Patrick McKinney, who shared symptoms of PTSD. Dustin Henderson and Eddie Munson, who is accused of being the culprit of the murders, bestow him with the alias "Vecna" based on his similarities with the character of the same name from Dungeons & Dragons. Vecna almost kills Max Mayfield until her friends find a way to break his influence using music. He later possesses Nancy Wheeler, to whom he reveals his past and then shows her a vision of the future where Hawkins is torn apart by cracks before freeing her. Nancy and her friends deduce that Vecna needs to open four gates to the Upside Down to execute his plan, three of which were generated at the site of each of his murders. Max tries to provoke Vecna while her friends travel to the Upside Down to kill him. Eleven, aware of his return, enters Max's mind and confronts Vecna, who is revealed to be the mastermind behind the Upside Down's previous attacks on Hawkins, dating back to 1983 when Will Byers disappeared. Vecna possesses and kills Max before Eleven overpowers him, while Steve, Nancy, and Robin severely wound his physical form before he escapes. Although Eleven revives Max, her brief death opens a fourth gate to the Upside Down, causing cracks in Hawkins, which allow the Upside Down to begin infiltrating the city.

Reception
Jamie Campbell Bower's performance as Vecna has been met with critical praise. Patrick Caoile of Collider said "For the first time, Stranger Things gives us a villain with layers. Through Vecna, Bower explores a compelling, more complicated villain than the monsters that came before. From his traumatic childhood as Henry Creel to the abusive experiments he went through as One and finally to his role as the Mind Flayer’s top general, Vecna is the perfect villain to pit against Eleven. Another Collider writer Robert Brian Taylor stated, "He's a compelling presence from the moment he first appears. [...] From there his performance continues to shape-shift -- from intriguing to imposing to menacing," and called his monologue scene in episode seven as "hypnotizing" and further deemed the scene as "Stranger Things at its best." Vulture's Devon Ivie wrote, "[Bower] has the distinction of embodying three characters, each more unsettling than the last, as the episodes unfurl: a friendly Hawkins Laboratory orderly; Henry Creel, aka "One"; and the most significant villain of the series thus far, Vecna." Movie Web named Vecna as the best villain in Stranger Things and also highlighted the way the character treated his victims.

Louis McCartney's performance as Henry Creel in Stranger Things: The First Shadow has been met with critical praise. West End Best Friend’s Jack Francis said "McCartney is both chilling and endearing as Henry Creel, whose work is nothing short of intense and visceral, adding a layer of tragedy to this previously simple monster story". Variety’s David Benedict said "a shuddering, terrified nerd whose monster creates havoc without and horror within…is due in no small part to the way he holds focus even in the midst of one coup-de-theatre after another".

Vecna was ranked first on the Comic Book Resources list of "10 Best Sci-Fi Villains." In 2023, Bower was nominated for the Critics' Choice Super Award for Best Villain in a Series and the MTV Movie and TV Award for Best Villain.